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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Iosue" data-source="post: 9508841" data-attributes="member: 6680772">It bugs me that the fan translation used "class" for the ginou. Something like "Feats" for sentou tokugi (combat specialties) is fine, because the sentou tokugi live in the same design space and accomplish the same role. But I think the ginou is a place where Sword World design specifically deviated from D&D, and has a completely different mindset. But calling them "classes" just encourages thinking of them in the same way. (I also called them skill packages in my Let's Read of SW2.5, but now I realize that even better is the term "skill set."IMO, because melee in SW2.5 is so "sticky", the GM really needs to give a lot of thought and effort to the environment and terrain to make the Advanced Combat worth the extra bookkeeping. There's nothing inherent in the system itself that is very "tactical". No forced movement, no bonuses for position or formation. You've got your skirmish zones and the characters that outside the skirmish zones looking in. Unless there's specifically a reason that the outside characters need to move between and/or around skirmish zones, I don't think there's much point in going beyond the Basic or Standard Combat rules.Very much agreed. Raxia, and specifically Alfreim, are gonzo in the best way. Labyrinths created by pseudo-sentient magic swords! Magitech ruins! Pocket dimensions of evil that just pop up anywhere and can take any form!It's nice that you can spend 10 bucks and have plenty of game to last you and your friends for a long time. But yeah, if you have all 3 core rulebooks, you almost have to buy Advanced Treasury, just to have the complete equipment lists.That said, I like not needing one book for characters, one book for monsters, and one book for GM advice, and I also like not needing to buy one huge tome for the info. The Power Table is definitely my first big WTF? moment when reading Sword World 2.5. Like, is Sword World still stuck in the 80s?Now I love the Power Table. It's not just the granularity, though having 82 different weapons to chose from in Rulebook I alone, each with a slightly different damage profile, is certainly part of the fun of Sword World. It's also the scaling. In 5e, for example, a higher level character deals more damage because they get more attacks and/or their damage die gets bigger (e.g., d6 to d8) and/or they get more dice to roll. And that's fine, that's one way to do it. But with SW2.5, you get weapons that have a higher power rating, and you're dealing more damage while still just rolling 2d6. Add to the that the exploding crit rating? Rolling on the Power Table is just so much fun.It is a bit old school. Modern design seems to eschew referencing tables. But that doesn't make it bad, at least in my XP.See, this is the kind of thing I mentioned above. You start thinking of the ginou as "classes", and then the koui hantei (action checks) become "skills", and the whole thing seems a little weird and off-putting.The Fighter skill set applies only to melee combat checks. The Shooter skill set applies only to ranged attack checks. The Scout skill set applies only to scouting-related checks. None of these checks are distinct skills; you can't improve one at the expense of another. The whole idea is that if you want to be proficient in those checks, you take a level in the overall skills set, and improvement in the skill set improves all those checks. The Fighter [Skill Set/Class] and the Scout [Skill Set/Class] are not opposed to each other. They are both there to let you achieve the kind of character you envision. The only question is which skill set you want to concentrate on.That's because the action checks are GM-facing. Ideally, the player just notes what they want to do, and then the GM decides if an action check is warranted, and if so, which check for the PC to make.</blockquote>

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